TV Guide The Official Collectors Guide: Celebrating An Icon [Paperback]

Dr. Stephen F. Hofer (Editor), Senior Editor, TV Guide Michael Davis (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 2006

TV Guide: The Official Collectors Guide is the ultimate price guide for collectors, as well as a history of TV as seen through the pages of TV Guide® magazine. The book contains almost 38,000 covers – all in color, as well as the values of every issue starting from the 1950s. It profiles the history of TV programs by decades and tells collectors where and how to find back issues. The book is 8 ½ x 11 inches, perfect bound, and has 315 full-color pages. This is the first time every TV Guide digest-size cover has been printed in one publication. Dr. Stephen H. Hofer, a professor of communications at Chicago State University and curator of the Philo T. Farnsworth Television History Center in Auburn, Indiana, is the Editor.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"It may be the best coffee table book ever published. In fact, you'll want to read it 'cover to cover'." -- Jim Longworth, TVParty.com and author of TV Creators

From the Publisher

TV GUIDE THE OFFICIAL COLLECTORS GUIDE is an amazing look back through the early years of television through Oct. 2005, when the last digest sized magazine was published. Not only the ultimate guide for collectors, but the ultimate source for TV trivia lovers!

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Product Details

• Paperback: 315 pages
• Publisher: Bangzoom Publishers (March 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0977292711
• ISBN-13: 978-0977292714
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #610,689 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars TV Guide: The Official Collectors Guide -- Celebrating An Icon, April 12, 2006

By 

Connor Kelley (Marblehead, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: TV Guide The Official Collectors Guide: Celebrating An Icon (Paperback)

This book has thousands of color pictures of TV Guide covers. By just looking at the pictures, I get a complete review course in the history of television. I also never knew that old TV Guides are collectible. Some are even worth thousands! This is a great book. There is a history of TV programs, which I am going to read at some point, but for now, I must admit that I just like looking at the pictures. It really brings back memories.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book, but flawed, October 3, 2006

By 

Brad Frank (Tulsa, Oklahoma USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: TV Guide The Official Collectors Guide: Celebrating An Icon (Paperback)

This book has several major flaws. For a start, there is no index. The only way to locate covers with your favorite stars or shows is to browse the pages year-by-year.

The price guide only gives values for "mint condition" issues, with no guidelines for how to adjust value for copies in less than mint condition. (Most collectors' guides give a range of prices based on condition.)

It would have been nice if they had included some lists, such as: the most valuable issues; issues with multiple covers; people who have appeared on the most covers; etc. All of these things are mentioned in the text, but there is no way to look them up except by browsing every listing.

Despite these flaws, this is still an invaluable book for collectors, because of it's comprehensive checklist.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Television Timeline, April 24, 2006

By 

rmac1117 "Ramsay MacInnes" (Cherry Valley, Ma United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: TV Guide The Official Collectors Guide: Celebrating An Icon (Paperback)

A mind-bending, if not surreal, parade of TV trivia presented week by week, year by year, era by era. Every single TV Guide cover is shown in true color, from April '53 to the first mag-size issue from autumn of last year. They're arranged as text would be on each page, left-to-right, top-to-bottom and IN ORDER on each page, dated and readily viewable. They even include full displays of all fold-out covers, as well as every version of each multiple cover, such as the one which had to be updated at Michael Landon's death, different regional sport-season previews, and the 25-cover tribute to all the Star Trek cast.

The book is in 3 main sections:
1) A 26-page section of blurb overseeing the history of TV Guide and background trivia of many of the covers
2) The section displaying the covers themselves, and
3) A listing of all covers (with dates and captions) and their collectible worth in mint condition.

It is bound in durable yet manageable paperback binding.

Anyone can invent their own TV trivia diversions just by scanning through this book (i.e. what are the earliest covers featuring people who are still alive? or Who has appeared the most times? or How did TV Guide handle documentarial times and issues [JFK's assassination, 9-11, the advent of cable & PBS etc.], or When did one televion era end, and another begin? and the like). The price list section also serves as an easier-to-count ready-reference of all the cover headings.

Mad Magazine presented a similar, also top-rate, timeline of all their covers a few years ago upon the advent of their 400th issue. The first such resource to incorporate all the TV Guide digest covers certainly doesn't disappoint.